


Route 10E

by smoakoverwatch



Series: Olicity + William [7]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Strangers to Lovers, thats pretty much it, will and oliver give me gilmore girls vibes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-04 03:38:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12160770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smoakoverwatch/pseuds/smoakoverwatch
Summary: When a hot single dad falls asleep on your shoulder, you let him.





	Route 10E

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a twitter conversation after I mentioned that I think it's cute when strangers fall asleep on me on the bus. Then, as most things do, it spiraled. Enjoy.
> 
> (unedited)

Felicity’s not exactly fond of public transit.

Most of the time it’s crowded, full of delays, unpredictable, and a headache inducing nightmare.

But it’s a necessary evil.

Taking the car down to work was adding up, and she figured that, as the Vice President handling a major clean energy project, she should do her part to reduce her carbon footprint.

Even if that means being shoved in between two chatty old ladies on a crowded bus at 6 pm.

The bus route she takes, 10E, is a rare one that gets crowded no matter what time of day it is, Felicity’s learned. It’s one of the few lines that provides an easy route from downtown to just outside the Glades, which means a lot of people get use out of it.

Despite its near constant crowding, Felicity finds that after a few months she’s able to recognize a few familiar faces.

One of those familiar faces is a really cute one, if she must admit, with the light stubble and messy hair thing he has going for him.

She tries not to look at him too often, he’s the kind of handsome that you can only really process out of the corner of your eye, but _damn_ is he something.

He’s not the most predictable, like the old man who sometimes offers Felicity crackers on her morning commute. She’ll sometimes go a few days without seeing him, but the days she does always feel somehow better.

It’s stupid, really, to spend all this time focusing on a stranger, but she can’t help it when the bus passes through a cell phone dead zone.

One evening in particular, when Felicity wraps up her work day at seven, she sees the stranger again, this time leading a young boy in front of him.

“I told you to always stay in front, Will,” she hears him comment tiredly. He collapses in the seat next to Felicity and rubs his eyes.

“Sorry, dad,” the young boy comments, and Felicity furrows his eyebrows. She didn’t think this guy was nearly old enough to be someone’s father. She surreptitiously checks his hand to find that his ring finger lays bare.

“William,” the man says in a firm voice, “I told you to stop apologizing.” He tips his head back and sighs loudly.

“I just feel like if I had –“

“Don’t worry about it, really. We’ll figure it out. We always do.”

“…. Okay.”

William’s eyebrows stay furrowed, watching his father carefully.

“Just give me five minutes to rest my eyes before we get home, okay? It’s been a long day and I still have to help Mrs. Norris with her car before I make dinner.”

William nods.

The other man tips his head back and lets his eyes slip shut. Eventually his breathing evens out and Felicity can tell he’s fallen asleep.

William reaches into his hoodie pocket and pulls out an old cellphone, taped around the edges where the screen is cracked and plays a game.

Felicity realizes at that moment that she should probably stop watching these two strangers out of the corner of her eye, and pulls out her tablet to go over her schedule for tomorrow.

No more than fifteen minutes pass until she feels a weight on her shoulder and she has to keep in a surprised ‘ _oh_ ’ when she looks over and finds a dirty blonde head on her shoulder.

The handsome stranger has fallen asleep on her.

This hasn’t really happened before, and she’s unsure of what to do.

She thinks nudging him awake is probably rude, and it’s not entirely intrusive, so she decides to leave him.

Besides, he looks like he’s definitely seen better days and could probably use the rest.

When she tears her eyes away from the weight on her side, her gaze lands on William, who looks at them with a sheepish expression.

“Sorry,” he says quietly, “he’s really tired. It’s kinda been a rough day.”

Felicity shakes her head, “it’s no big deal. Is uh…” she wonders how much she can pry about this total stranger that she’s grown fond of, “is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” William shrugs half-heartedly, his voice low and defeated, “he’s just been working a few jobs lately and – and he got fired from the supermarket today and it was my fault.”

Felicity’s eyebrows shoot up.

“I had the day off school, and he couldn’t get a sitter and he didn’t want to leave me alone in the Glades, so he brought me in and told me to stay out of his manager’s sight but I guess she saw and…” William looks down, turning his phone over in his hands, “yeah. My fault.”

Felicity looks down at him again, her heart aching.

His story is one that sounds all too familiar to her own, memories of hiding under stools in a Las Vegas hotel bar so that her mother won’t get in trouble. The struggles of being a single parent, trying to make it work but not ever giving away your pain to your child, she knows that all too well.

She can’t dwell on the feeling for long, because the bus stops abruptly, honking the horn and swerving just a bit to avoid a car.

It jolts the stranger awake, and he lifts his head from Felicity’s shoulder with wide eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he says, furrowing his eyebrows as he tries to reorient himself to his surroundings. “Shit, I’m really sorry about that.”

“It’s fine, real –”

“Will,” the man turns to his son, “why didn’t you wake me up?”

William looks wide eyed, “uh, you just looked really tired, dad and she said –”

“It’s fine, I promise,” Felicity finally pushes out, and it catches the man’s attention. He turns to her with a guilty expression not unlike the one his son wore earlier. “From what I heard,” she continues, “you really needed it.”

He raises his eyebrow, “from what you heard?”

Felicity looks over his shoulder to William, who is suddenly interested in his phone.

She wants to say more, but the familiar, bored voice of the announcement says “ _Next stop, Glendale Road_ ” interrupts her.

She smiles apologetically, putting her tablet in her bag and getting up. “That’s my stop,” she gives an awkward little wave, “it was nice meeting you, William, and …”

“Oliver,” the man supplies with an honest-to-god _heart stopping_ smile.

“Felicity,” she grins back before walking to the door.

She can’t help but hope that her run in with Oliver won’t just be a one time thing.

* * *

As luck would have it, it isn’t. She starts to notice Oliver more often, sometimes with William, sometimes alone. Most mornings, when the bus is too packed he’ll give a little wave and a smile, but some nights they’ll be able to sit together and make small talk.

And, god help her, their little conversations make her fall fast.

He doesn’t talk much about himself, instead loves sharing stories about William. His face lights up when he shares an accomplishment at school, or that he gets to spend a rare day off his two jobs with his son. It’s enchanting to watch.

And he listens too, carefully nodding along as she explains exactly what her complicated tech job entails.

It takes her two weeks of their stolen moments on the bus until she works up the courage to ask him out.

But, as they often do, things don’t work out according to plan.

One week goes by and she stops seeing him on her morning or evening commutes. She dismisses it, figuring that his shift schedules just aren’t working in their favour.

At two weeks, she starts to feel regretful that in all their conversations, she never managed to get his phone number or even his last name.

Seriously, a self-proclaimed tech wiz in the age of social media, where it’s impossible to lose touch with people, managed to let this great guy slip through the cracks.

At three weeks, she resigns to the fact that this might have just been one of those chance encounters, and moves on.

* * *

It’s not Felicity’s day.

Her bus was delayed this morning, making her twenty minutes late.

On top of that, she knows she has to meet with Robert Queen today and she _hates_ meeting that guy. He’s a stubborn ass who never listens. She already managed to get his hesitant support for the project, but today she needs to lock him down and get his support in writing.

Anyway.

When she speed-walks into her office, her assistant looks distressed, “I’ve been trying to text you,” he says, “your meeting is in ten minutes.”

“I’m well aware, Jerry,” she tries to say patiently, “just let me get my stuff together and have him wait in the conference room.”

She slams her purse down on her desk, trying to gather all the notes she needed to convince Robert Queen to get on board this clean energy project.

Fifteen minutes later, when she feels more put together, she walks into the conference room and freezes.

Next to Robert is someone else, fiddling uncomfortably with the tie around his neck. When he turns to her, his eyes widen.

“Felicity?”

“Oliver?” she clutches the files in her hand tight. “I don’t… what?”

 “I see you know my son already, Miss Smoak?” Robert steps in between them, cutting off her confused glance at Oliver.

“We’ve… met,” she says vaguely, trying to recalibrate herself to the new situation. She blinks once and directs her focus at the senior Queen.

“Please, have a seat,” she gestures to the chairs around the boardroom table.

The meeting goes better than she expected, given that her mind is in a dozen different places. She focuses entirely on the senior Queen, ignoring the way Oliver’s eyes stay trained on her throughout the meeting.

She walks them down to the lobby, and Robert is not at all subtle when he decides to walk out first and let Oliver linger behind for a moment.

Felicity clasps her hands together awkwardly, “So… new job?” she tries to say conversationally.

Oliver nods sheepishly.

“I don’t know how much you’ve heard about me… and my family.”

Felicity shakes her head.

“Right well… I had William pretty young, and it wasn’t… planned,” he winces, “and they didn’t approve. They wanted me to marry William’s mother, make it ‘proper’, and I didn’t listen. I got cut off and had to make it on my own for the past ten years.”

He stares at his shoes.

“And for a while, I was making it on my own just fine, but Will’s expenses started to pile up, and I was behind on rent this month,” he continues, and the defeat in his voice breaks Felicity’s heart, “I had to go back. I’m not proud of it, but it’s what I had to do for my son.”

Felicity nods, “I get it, Oliver, I do. I’m just surprised to see you here after weeks. You left me high and dry on the bus.”

He gives a wry smile, “yeah, my dad’s condition was this monkey suit and the job, and my mom wanted me to move back so she can get some quality time with her grandson. So, no more public transit.”

“Right,” she nods. Belatedly, it occurs to her that the chance she had been waiting weeks for has now landed in her lap.

When he tucks his hands in his pockets and turns to the exit, she panics.

“Hey, Oliver?” she asks hesitantly. He raises his eyebrows.

“This might be… wildly inappropriate considering we’re technically business partners now… but I’d wanted to ask for weeks and…” she starts tripping over her words, feeling her ears go hot in a way she hasn’t remembered since middle school.

“Felicity?”

“Do you … want to get coffee sometime?”

Oliver smiles.

“How about dinner instead?”

“Even better,” she grins, “I see this great place on my bus route every day, maybe we can try that out tonight.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> twitter - smoakoverwatch  
> tumblr - overwatchandarrow


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